"Jack Finney - Of Missing Persons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

You perhaps have seen how very much you can observe in the fractional instant of a lightning
flashтАФan entire landscape sometimes, every detail etched on your memory, to be seen and studied in
your mind for long moments afterward. As I turned back toward the opened door the inside of that barn
came alight. Through every wide crack of its walls and ceiling and through the big dust-coated windows
in its side streamed the light of an intensely brilliant blue and sunny sky, and the air pulling into my lungs as
I opened my mouth to shout was sweeter than any I had ever tasted in my life. Dimly, through a wide,
dust-smeared window of that barn, I lookedтАФfor less than the blink of an eyeтАФdown into a deep
majestic V of forest-covered slope, and I saw, tumbling through it, far below, a tiny stream, blue from the
sky, and at that stream's edge between two low roofs a yellow patch of sun-drenched beach. And then,
that picture engraved on my mind forever, the heavy door slid shut, my fingernails rasping along the
splintery wood in a desperate effort to stop itтАФand I was standing alone in a cold and rain-swept night.

It took four or five seconds, no longer, fumbling at that door, to heave it open again. But it was four
or five seconds too long. The barn was empty, dark. There was nothing inside but a worn pine
benchтАФand, in the flicker of the lighted match in my hand, tiny drifts of what looked like damp confetti
on the floor. As my mind had known even as my hands scratched at the outside of that door, there was
no one inside now; and I knew where they wereтАФknew they were walking, laughing aloud in a sudden
wonderful and eager ecstasy, down into that forest-green valley, toward home.

I work in a bank, in a job I don't like; and I ride to and from it in the subway, reading the daily
papers, the news they contain. I live in a rented room, and in the battered dresser under a pile of my
folded handkerchiefs is a little rectangle of yellow cardboard. Printed on its face are the words, "Good
when validated, for one trip to Verna," and stamped on the back is a date. But the date is gone, long
since, the ticket void, punched in a pattern of tiny holes.

I've been back to the Acme Travel Bureau. The first time the tall gray-haired man walked up to me
and laid two five-dollar bills, a one, and seventeen cents in change before me. "You left this on the
counter last time you were here," he said gravely. Looking me squarely in the eyes, he added bleakly. "I
don't know why." Then some customers came in, he turned to greet them, and there was nothing for me
to do but leave.

Walk in as though it were the ordinary agency it seemsтАФyou can find it, somewhere, in any city
you try! Ask a few ordinary questionsтАФabout a trip you're planning, a vacation, anything you like.
Then hint about The Folder a little, but don't mention it directly. Give him time to size you up and
offer it himself. And if he does, if you're the type, if you can believeтАФthen make up your mind and
stick to it! Because you won't ever get a second chance. I know, because I've tried. And tried. And
tried.